There are always worthwhile charitable efforts going on in the world of puzzles and games, and that’s true in the roleplaying game community as well.
Dozens of roleplaying game companies and content creators have partnered to create charity bundles in support of the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s the Gayming with Pride initiative, organized through DriveThruRPG!
All proceeds from Bundle #1 support Outright International, a team that works to document and amplify awareness of human rights violations against the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as advocating for inclusion, equality, and communication globally between members of the community.
All proceeds from Bundle #2 support Tabletop Gaymers, a nonprofit that champions the community in public spaces, handing out free ribbons (identifying yourself by your pronouns, as an ally, or as a gaymer) at conventions, while also promoting discussion, inclusion, acceptance, and joy through gaming and self-identification.
A lot of these donated games and supplements are being shared at 90% off, so these companies are putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting this cause.
9th Level Games, Renegade Game Studios, Warhammer, Doctor Who, Pirate Borg, and more are represented in this charity effort, showing that love and support for the LGBTQIA+ community spans all genres, worlds, and interests.
A lot of companies this year aren’t even engaging in their usual half-hearted rainbow-washing branding, let alone ACTUALLY working to support and bolster the cause of the LGBTQIA+ community.
So it’s awesome to see RPG companies once again stepping up in solidarity with friends, loved ones, coworkers, and strangers in the community whose voices deserve to be heard.
Are there other charity efforts going on in puzzles and games that I’ve missed? Let me know and I’ll happily shout them out in the blog and try my best to help raise awareness.
Yes, I know this is the New Yorker’s iconography, but sadly this is also the default in some people’s minds for who constructs and who solves the NYT crossword, and it’s awesome we’re taking steps to change that…
The New York Times Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship provides mentorship and support for constructors whose backgrounds and perspectives could be better reflected in our puzzles. We want our puzzles to reflect the experiences of as many people as possible, which means publishing work that displays a wide range of cultural reference points, language usage and communities.
This mentorship gives aspiring constructors (ones who haven’t yet been published by NYT) the opportunity for three months of instruction, advice, and insight from one of the NYT puzzle editors. It’s an incredibly talented list of people to learn from: Sam Ezersky, Wyna Liu, Tracy Bennett, Christina Iverson, Joel Fagliano, and Ian Livengood.
It’s open to constructors seeking guidance on either themed or unthemed crosswords, with specific guidelines when you apply:
If you’d like to work on a themed puzzle during the fellowship, you will need a theme set with theme clues provided. A tentative grid with theme answers placed is helpful.
If you’d like to work on a themeless puzzle, you will need to provide one of the following: a 7×7 grid with clues, a 15×15 grid with clues or a partly filled 15×15 grid with clues.
Good luck to everyone submitting! The world of crosswords is a more interesting, more immersive place when everyone is represented, and opportunities like this make both constructors AND outlets better.
On May 6th, The Guardian published their 30,000th cryptic puzzle, which was set by one of the most celebrated voices in cryptic puzzles, Arachne. Crossword editor Alan Connor called the cryptic puzzle “a perfect little enigma.”
Now, that would have been milestone enough, but as it turns out, the setters of The Guardian had something much more elaborate in store for their loyal solvers: a treasure hunt spanning MANY cryptics.
They’d started two years beforehand.
Back in 2024, they began brainstorming something special for Cryptic #30,000.
A few months later, a series of entries began appearing in the bottom row of particular cryptics. Entries like WELL DONE, BRAVO, and HERE were intended to draw the eye of attentive puzzle fans. (This would prove helpful later for people searching back through the puzzle archives, once they’d learned about the treasure hunt.)
But the creative team were careful going forward, utilizing only chunks of words (ISOURF, INALCH, ALLENG) and not full entries. I can imagine the confusion for those keen-eyed solvers who were already on the trail when the pattern suddenly changed.
This continued throughout 2025 with solvers none the wiser.
The treasure hunt began in earnest when cryptic #30,000 was published.
In cryptic #30,000, Arachne included the phrases PERIMETER TODAY and QUICK CROSSWORD reading out in the grid. (The Quick Crossword accompanies the daily cryptic in The Guardian.) Solvers who then completed the Quick Crossword would then find the following message reading out clockwise on the perimeter of the grid:
LEADER I TAILORED BADLY
A cryptic clue was hidden in the perimeter letters!
Arachne had also included the word ACROSTIC in Cryptic #30,000 as a subliminal hint to solvers for where to look in the editorial that day.
And if you read the first letter of each paragraph in Connor’s editorial, you get the message LAST THIRTY-FIVE PRIMES.
No, wait, wrong Prime…
Diabolical work. That was the pattern to follow in order to uncover which puzzles were part of their long-running secret message, indicating the actual cryptic puzzle numbers to search through, starting with #29581 and ending with #29989.
So what was the message? What was the final result of a year and a half of seeding and sneaking and devious wordplay?
Well done, bravo, here in conclusion is our final challenge. Are you keeping up? Great, there will be a wonderful prize but first you must enter a race. Not an actual athletic race of course, that would be weird. Not that. It’s a cerebral race in the form of a crossword puzzle. It’s a Genius published at noon BST tomorrow. Godspeed!
Naturally, when the hour arrived, a Genius crossword appeared, set by the one and only Enigmatist, another beloved name in the field of cryptics.
Duncan over at Fifteen Squared did an amazing breakdown of not just the treasure hunt but the puzzle that awaited solvers at the end, and it is a mind-bending bit of puzzling.
To start, there were no answer length at the end of each clue, which is definitely a break with tradition when it comes to cryptic crosswords. And that’s for a good reason.
Solvers had to add a letter to many of the answers in order to form the words RECKON, DEDUCE, REASON, and IDEATE beyond the boundaries of the grid.
Yes, they had to think outside the box.
Many of the answers referred to luminaries in their various fields (EINSTEIN, ESCHER, LEONARDO, MANDELA, WATSON, CERVANTES, etc.), making the Genius crossword rather literal.
The first letter of every clue ALSO had something to hide. When you removed the names of two more geniuses reading out acrostic-style, BEETHOVEN and ARAUCARIA (yet another beloved cryptic setter), you get the message IT IS WHAT GENIUSES DO.
Which ties back to thinking outside the box.
Wow. What a puzzle.
So, did the puzzle live up to the hype after ALL of this amazing build-up?
I’ve finally followed the rabbit-hole all the way to the bottom and… wow. Just blown away by the whole thing, to the point of tears at the final mic-drop.
It’s as if a dedicated team of clever people co-ordinated in secret for a year and a half to deliver something that felt like it was designed just for me (and possibly you, if you’re here). Gorgeous, beautiful work.
WELL DONE and BRAVO, Guardian editors and setters and contributors. What an amazing gift to offer your solvers.
Good luck topping this one when you get to the next 30,000 puzzle goal line!
Are you a cryptic solver, fellow puzzler? Would you have been unable to unravel The Guardian’s crafty clues and hidden hints? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.
It’s hosted by our friends at Club Drosselmeyer, who are amazing performers, puzzlers, and event planners who have been branching out in recent years to great success!
That’s so many new opportunities to check out this delightful “playable theater” experience. Who doesn’t love a wedding with all the pomp and circumstance and spies and secret plots and potentially world-endangering threats?
You know, wedding stuff!
And that’s not all! If you’re in the Boston area, you’re absolutely spoiled for puzzly choices this summer!
On Saturday, June 13th and Saturday, July 18th, The Big Dig Treasure Hunt challenges you (and a couple of teammates) to walk through Downtown Boston, solving puzzles for a few hours.
Stephanie Yang (who created some of the puzzles for The Wedding Party) has masterminded this event, and as someone who has participated in The Great Urban Race and similar city-based puzzly challenges, this one sounds like a winner!
Click here for more details and ticket information.
Choose your class, interact with guild members, help them solve problems, and enjoy a few drinks along the way! It’s a casual D&D LARP-style event that sounds like a great time for longtime RPG fans AND a marvelous way to introduce new players to roleplaying in a fun setting!
As the organizers say on Eventbrite: “You’ll solve puzzles, make choices, drink potions, argue philosophy, and possibly die.”
What more could you ask from a pub crawl?
Will you be attending any of these amazing events, fellow puzzlers? Is there an event near you that you’d like to see featured on PuzzCulture? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
This event is being held both in-person and online, with four themed puzzles and two themeless/freestyle puzzles to challenge solvers. The list of constructors for this year’s event is quite impressive: Andrea Carla Michaels, Byron Walden, Mark Axel, Rebecca Goldstein, Sarah Sinclair, Sophia Maymudes, Mallory Montgomery, and Zhou Zhang.
The event itself is happening on July 26th in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, and is sure to be a great time.
Man, we’ve got Westwords in June, Boswords in July, Lollapuzzoola in August, and Midwest in October! Tournaments galore!
International Day of Play!
June 11th marks the third annual International Day of Play!
The United Nations, through UNICEF, created International Day of Play in 2024 to raise awareness of how important the act of playing is to the development and well-being of children.
This year’s theme for International Day of Play is “Protect play, protect childhood.”
Play is so important for all of us. It fosters relationship building and cooperation, reinforces friendly competition and concepts of right and wrong, and maintains that childlike love and whimsy that comes with play that so many of us, young and old, must hold onto at all costs in a world that is so often unkind, unfriendly, and unfair.
You can find out more about International Day of Play on UNICEF’s website.
Free RPG Day is coming soon!
Last, but certainly not least, Free RPG Day is Saturday, June 27th.
The concept behind Free RPG Day is simple. All over the world (but mostly in the United States), local game shops, hobby shops, and other outlets team up with RPG publishers to distribute new, fresh, and most importantly, free material for all sorts of different roleplaying games, systems, and settings.
Sometimes they’re quickstart versions of the games to introduce new players. Sometimes they’re exclusive adventures or modules to play either in-store or at home. Othertimes, they’re entirely new games, free of charge.
Not only can you receive a wealth of new ideas and playing options in one fell swoop, but it serves as a terrific way to meet fellow roleplayers and build a community of game enthusiasts.
You can click this helpful link to find local spots near you that are participating in Free RPG Day, and I would highly recommend searching online for local game shops, game cafes, and even community centers like your local public library to see who is participating.
These shops will often be running demonstrations of games, tutorials on how to play, hosting raffles and contests, and offering terrific sale prices to encourage you to find the game that fits you best.
Every year, dozens of companies get involved, not only to encourage the growth of the game world, but to promote their own products. And what better way is there to get people hooked than with free exclusive materials begging to be tried out?
Keep your eyes peeled for this year’s edition of the Level 1 Anthology, offered by 9th Level Games. It’s a collection of new games by up-and-coming and established RPG creators, all centered around a particular theme. Last year’s edition was all about the end of the Wild West. This year’s is about Stand Up.
This project is close to my heart because I had games featured in the previous two years’ Level 1 collections, and I also have a game featured in this year’s collection!
Let’s start off the month right with a few bonus puzzles for you to solve!
Inspired by one of the many puzzles featured by our friends at Penny Press, I’ve constructed two Escalators for you today.
Instructions: Write the 5-letter answer to clue 1 in the first space. Drop one letter and rearrange the remaining letters to answer clue 2. Put the dropped letter into column A. Drop another letter and rearrange the remaining letters to answer clue 3. Put the dropped letter into column B. Follow this pattern for each row in the diagram. When completed, the letters in column A and column B, reading down, will spell an appropriate phrase.
Here’s the clues for Puzzle #1:
I’ve also included an empty sample grid for you to fill!
Here’s the clues for Puzzle #2:
And again, an empty sample grid, if needed!
The answers reading down in both puzzles are equally appropriate for this month (and next month), depending on your mood!
